The systems and methods disclosed herein relate to document authentication and, more particularly, to securely generating encoded data on demand based on authentication information associated with a document and incorporating that encoded data into the document for authentication purposes.
Historically, physical documents (i.e., non-electronic documents, including, but not limited to, hand-written, printed or copied documents) have been authenticated using imprimaturs (i.e., official marks of genuineness or validity), which are applied to the surface of a physical document using, for example, a unique stamp. These imprimaturs have many enduring conveniences, even in the digital age, because they require physical possession of the stamp itself and because they can be applied onto the surface of any type of physical document. Unfortunately, they offer only weak guarantees of genuineness or validity because the official marks can be forged and/or the stamps used to apply them may be duplicated.
Recently, techniques have been developed for embedding encoded data into a document (e.g., barcode marks, micro-text marks, etc. into a printed version of a document or a digital signature into an electronic version of a document). This encoded data functions as an imprimatur in that it can subsequently be decoded and read to authenticate the printed and/or electronic versions of the document. These techniques offer greater guarantees of genuineness or validity than the imprimaturs discussed above. However, they are not foolproof because computerized devices that execute the encryption algorithms used to generate the encoded data are typically only password protected and are network accessible. Thus, they can be hacked and the encryption algorithms can be cracked.